This discussion paper seeks views on the 2019-20 Migration Program to ensure immigration continues to serve the national interest and the interests of all Australians in the coming year.

This guide provides an overview of the drivers of Australia’s growing population and an introduction to the key concepts and terminology used.

The potential value of Australia implementing (and progressively refining over time) an integrated national policy to direct, anticipate, monitor and respond to population change (i.e. a ‘population policy’) would appear to be considerable.

Does the absence of precise targets for total population and for the rate of population growth mean that Australia does not have a population policy? That seems to be the popular perception based on the current debate about population, and no less an authority than the Productivity Commission has recently called for a population policy...

The present social and political contexts are such that a population policy is likely for the first time in the country’s recent history. The government has indeed signalled a population policy (focused on migrant settlement) will be put forward with haste. Yet exactly what constitutes an appropriate population policy for contemporary Australia is still yet...